


Arranged

by allyndra



Category: Bandom, Panic! at the Disco
Genre: Arranged Marriage, M/M, Miscommunication, Regency Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-11
Updated: 2011-01-11
Packaged: 2019-07-11 05:15:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15965474
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allyndra/pseuds/allyndra
Summary: Spencer's husband comes home. (Historically inaccurate Regency arranged marriage schmoop.)





	Arranged

**Author's Note:**

> Posted on LJ in January 2011, added on AO3 in September 2018 (backdated)
> 
> Written for the no_tags exchange

Spencer's husband arrived on his doorstep with the same pomp and ceremony as a brown paper parcel from the local shops. Actually, practically _swaddled_ as he was in a vast and ugly muffler, hat, and greatcoat, he resembled a parcel in more ways than one. 

The household hadn't been expecting him, and the surprise at his appearance was obvious in the way Crawford - who usually had aplomb enough for anything - had to blink two extra times before turning to where Spencer was standing, paused in the act of descending the front staircase, and saying, "Mr. Smith has arrived, sir. Shall I show him to the library?"

Brendon was stripping off his outer garments and laying them over Crawford's arm with cheerful disregard for the butler's faint air of disapproval. "Yes, that would be fine," Spencer replied. He raised an eyebrow at Brendon, who had emerged from under the muffler, coat, and hat with pink cheeks and ruffled hair. "If you don't mind, Brendon?"

Brendon grinned. "I never mind. Just ask my parents."

"I'll be with you in a moment, then," Spencer said with a sigh. He uncurled his hand from the banister, surprised to find he'd been gripping it, and descended the rest of the staircase, stepping quickly down the hallway and into his study. He shut the door behind him and slumped back against it, closing his eyes. 

Brendon. Spencer hadn't seen him since the wedding six months before. Bloody hell.

***

_Spencer overheard the nursery maid referring to Brendon and him as 'intended' when he was five. He knew what intended meant - something that wasn't an accident - and he liked that idea. Brendon was one of his favorite people, even if he did hog the rocking horse when he visited Spencer's house. Spencer liked the notion that he and Brendon were supposed to be friends, that it hadn't been mere chance._

_Spencer found out what 'intended' really meant in reference to him and Brendon a year later. He accompanied his mother to tea at the Uries', and there were jam tarts as a treat on the tray brought to the nursery. Spencer glared when Brendon tried to claim both of them, and Brendon pouted at him, his eyes going huge and wet and his mouthing drawing down._

_"When you're my husband you'll have to give me all the jam tarts," he declared._

_Spencer froze, still draped protectively over his plate in a way that would have got him scolded immediately if his mother saw him. "Husband?" he garbled out through a full mouth._

_Brendon assumed a very superior expression, kicking his feet happily against his wooden chair. "Husband," he confirmed. "We're intended." He filled the word with importance, and Spencer was so caught up in the implications that he didn't even feel stupid for not having realized._

_"Oh," he said. Being a husband meant being married. Living in a house together and sharing a dinner table and a carriage and a family. Spencer smiled at Brendon, wide and happy and careless of the crumbs on his lips. "Good."_

_Brendon smiled back, and when his hand crept toward the remains of Spencer's tart, Spencer magnanimously let him have it._

***

When Spencer made his way to the library, he found Brendon ensconced by the fire with tea and biscuits. He looked settled and at home in a way that made Spencer's heart clench in his chest. Brendon glanced up at him with a welcoming smile as he entered. 

"Hello, Spencer," he said brightly. "I've run away." For a moment the years dropped away and he looked exactly like the boy he'd once been, turning up in the Smiths' stable with a rueful smile and those same words. 

Spencer swallowed down an aching sort of wistfulness. "Aren't you meant to be at Oxford? Reading history and eating dinners?" he asked, crossing the room to sit in a chair near Brendon's. He helped himself to a biscuit. "Don't say you've been sent down."

"I decided that the black silk gown wasn't quite my style," Brendon quipped. When Spencer just looked at him, he deflated, curling around his teacup. "I had another fight with my parents." He pressed his lips into a tight line.

"Was it the Parliament idea again?" Spencer asked, turning the biscuit over in his fingers. He was leaving fine crumbs all down his front, but he couldn't seem to care. 

Brendon nodded. "The Parliament idea and just … everything. They have a plan for my life. 'Do this, go here, study this, marry-'" Spencer flinched, and Brendon cut himself off. "Anyway, we had a row, and I told them I wasn't completing the term and I certainly wasn't going to go on to a career in politics. Father said something rather unkind about having arranged this marriage to improve my social and political prospects, and I suddenly realized.

"Realized what?" Spencer asked. His voice was rough in his throat.

"That we are married," Brendon said with a crooked little smile. "Our situation has been so odd, I'd got out of the habit of thinking of it that way. But once I realized, I called for a carriage and asked Baddely to send on my things." His eyes were dark, and his face looked flushed, but it could have been a trick of the firelight. "And then I came here."

Spencer took a long, slow breath. This wasn't the plan. But Brendon looked … Spencer sighed. Brendon looked hopeful and lost and still a bit angry, and Spencer had never been able to deny him anything. "Welcome home," he said. 

***

_Bertram had fussed over Spencer's cravat for what seemed like hours, but it still didn't look quite right. Spencer wondered how angry the valet would be if Spencer pulled it off and started afresh. He was staring at it in his large shaving glass when the door opened and Brendon slipped silently in._

_"What are you doing?" Spencer asked in a hush. No one would hear them with the door shut, but the visit felt illicit anyway, coming just now._

_"I just needed to talk to you." Brendon looked extremely well in his new blue coat, fitted tight across the shoulders. His hair was combed forward in the latest fashion, and it made Spencer want to sweep it back off his forehead. A wave of giddiness swept through him at the knowledge that in a few hours he'd be totally authorized in doing so._

_"What do you need to talk about?" Spencer took a step toward him, but Brendon brushed past him to stand near the window._

_"Are you certain this is for the best?" Brendon asked hurriedly. "It seems so … rushed and inelegant."_

_Spencer frowned. "The banns were read, all right and proper. It's not as though we're running off to Gretna Green."_

_"I always thought those stories sounded romantic," Brendon said, his lips quirking into a wistful smile. "Eloping in a carriage with only a single bag."_

_"It sounds uncomfortable to me," Spencer admitted. But then, he thought_ Romeo and Juliet _was depressing, no matter how many times he'd listened to Brendon and Ryan sigh over it. "What's the matter?"_

_"I suppose," Brendon said, "that it just suddenly feels very real. I thought we'd have more time."_

_Spencer rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, ducking his head. "We would have had more time, if the plantation in the West Indies hadn't faltered so badly."_

_"And you don't mind?" Brendon asked, an odd edge to his voice. "That you're marrying me solely to save you family from debt?"_

_"You're marrying me to ally your family to an old name," Spencer retorted, stung. He turned away, no longer willing to look at Brendon in his wedding finery. He paced around the room for a full three turns, and then huffed out a frustrated breath. "I don't know what you want."_

_"I … I want this to be a love match," Brendon said, his voice soft, and it hit Spencer low in his gut. For him, it always had been._

***

There was a little troupe of servants hurrying back and forth, toting steaming cans of water and piles of towels. The footman had hauled up the big copper tub first thing, even though it was Tuesday and Spencer habitually bathed on Mondays and Fridays. Spencer lurked in his bedroom, trying not to imagine the scene in the adjoining room.

He busied himself at the little desk in the corner, penning a letter to his mother and a note to his solicitor. He believed that there was no impediment to Brendon's living here, but he needed to be certain that the Uries' insistence on Brendon completing his education had been wholly personal and not part of the marriage articles. 

He had removed his coat and cravat and was leaning back in his chair when Brendon said, "La, good sir, you do strip to advantage." He was leaning in the doorway to the dressing room that connected their bedchambers, his hair curling wet around his ears.

"This hardly qualifies as stripped," Spencer protested. Still, he felt suddenly naked in his shirt sleeves under Brendon's gaze.

"We could remedy that," Brendon offered, head tilted so that he could blink at Spencer coquettishly.

"That- Don't," Spencer said. "Don't flirt with me."

"You're my husband. You are by far the properest person for me to flirt with." Brendon stepped further into the room, and Spencer felt oddly trapped. 

"Yes, I'm your husband," Spencer said harshly, "You have a home with me for as long as you like, and I promise to never shove you into Parliament. That doesn't mean you have to pretend anything you don't feel."

Brendon stilled and gave Spencer a long, assessing stare. "I'm not pretending anything," he said. "Spencer, do you believe that?"

Spencer ran an agitated hand through his hair. "You may have been made to marry me, but I'd never force anything else upon you, Brendon, God." He hadn't ever. They'd spent their wedding night drinking in disappointed silence until they were drunk enough to put their frustrations aside and play cards. Spencer had lost badly, and his full day as a married man had found him with an aching head and empty pockets, and a husband already on the road to Oxford.

"I'm not afraid of you," Brendon said, and Spencer's heart lurched. 

"Good," he said, his voice low to hide the way it wanted to crack. "I'm sorry you couldn't wed for love, but I'll make sure you have everything else you could want for."

Brendon's eyes went wide and wondering. He opened his mouth to speak and then closed it twice. Spencer couldn't recall ever seeing him silenced like that before. "I married for love," he said. "If it had been anyone else but you, I'd have told my parents to go hang."

"But you said, on our wedding day, that you wished you'd had a love match. You told me yourself!" Spencer's voice shook, and when he looked down, he saw that his hands did, too. 

"I wished that we were a love match." Brendon laughed. "I wished you were marrying me because you wanted to, and not to secure my fortune for your family's coffers."

"Brendon." Spencer felt like he couldn't get enough air, but he could hear the harsh sound of his own breathing. "All my life I wanted to marry you."

Brendon's mouth dropped into a comical O of surprise, and Spencer wanted to touch it. "Truly?" Brendon breathed.

"We were intended," Spencer said. "Do you know what I always thought that meant?"

"Arranged by our families for their mutual benefit?" Brendon asked. His voice was breathless and his eyes were dark and a bit wild.

"Meant to be," Spencer corrected. "Possibly destined."

"That's more romantic than Gretna Green," Brendon said. He stepped close to Spencer and stretched up the few inches between them. His lips were pink and full and so near, and Spencer leaned down to finally, finally meet them, half a year since he'd got the right and twelve years since he'd started wanting it. 

It was better than jam tarts.


End file.
